| Summary: | On verso of image: Cordova, Sept. '16 Filed in Alaska--Cities--Cordova Cordova is the historical home of the Aleut people, plus migrating Athabascan and Tlingit natives who called themselves Eyaks. Alaska Natives of other backgrounds also settled in the area. In 1790, the Spanish explorer Don Salvador Fildalgo sailed into Orca Inlet. One of the first producing oil fields in Alaska was discovered at Katalla, 47 miles southeast of Cordova, in 1902. The town of Cordova itself was named in 1906 by Michael Heney, builder of the Copper River and Northwestern Railroad. Cordova served as the railroad terminus and ocean shipping port for copper ore from the Kennecott Mine up the Copper River in the early decades of the 20th century. The first trainload of ore was loaded onto the steamship Northwestern in April 1911, bound for a smelter in Tacoma, Washington. The Bonanza-Kennecott Mines operated through 1938, yielding more than $200 million in copper, silver and gold. The Katalla oil field produced until 1933, when it was destroyed by fire. The economic base of Cordova turned to fishing in the early 1940s. The 1964 Good Friday earthquake pushed Cordova's land mass up six to seven feet, leaving part of the harbor high and dry. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers later deepened the harbor, reclaiming 15 acres of tideland by building a bulkhead [Source: http://www.inalaska.com/d/cordova/history.html]
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